you whatever you need.”
“I release you from your promise.” He makes an easy leap onto the side of the canyon wall, his long metal fingers slipping into cracks and anchoring him. “Send word to your father when you can.”
There is an odd, sad, certain note in his voice that makes my heart speed. He is not returning to the Ring, and he is not coming to Dagchocuk. “Where are you going?”
He shakes his head. “Where I belong.”
Now panic is rising in me. My Ghost, the boy who could not relinquish his grip on life, sounds as if he is letting go. “Sinan would not want this. He would have wanted you to stay and help the people he loved. You owe that to him.”
“I owe him nothing!” Bo shouts. “He was a silly Noor boy who did not see me for what I am. And you are a stupid girl who thinks I feel more than I do, who thinks I am worth more than I am, and who is the reason I have betrayed my own people.” He sweeps his arm across the scene of carnage, the smoking machines, the bodies, the grieving survivors. His eye swivels back to glare at me. “Maybe it is you who have ruined me.”
“Blame me if you need to, but don’t leave. We still need you,” I plead. And he needs us. Somehow I know it is the only thing keeping him human. “There might be more machines coming.”
“I am done. With you and everyone else. I am done. Nothing is worth . . . this.” He sounds as hollow as Melik did, like something inside him is broken forever. He crawls up the rock wall and heaves himself onto the trail above. For a moment he looks down at me, and I stare at him, silently begging him to come back. He opens his mouth, and my blood sings with hope.
“Tell Guiren I tried,” he says. “And tell him I am sorry.”
With spindly metal fingers he closes his faceplate, hiding any trace of his soft, human self. His steel muscles hum as he crouches, and his armor clanks as he lunges upward. In a few seconds he has disappeared into the narrow canyon. I listen, clinging to the sound of him, until the only noise that reaches me is the cries of the Noor as they prepare to carry their dead back to Dagchocuk.
Chapter
Eighteen
THE CRESCENT MOON hangs over the plains of Yilat like a sickle poised to cut us all down. I hike at the rear of the procession of Noor, tending to my patients as best I can. Some of them can walk, but they are slower than the rest, and whenever we stop, I pour jie cao and san qi tea down their throats and smear honey on wounds to keep them from festering. Some of the wounded are carried in makeshift stretchers made from sleeping blankets, and I apply fresh bandages and check for bleeding, fevers, breathing difficulties, and faltering heartbeats. I grit my teeth in frustration when I cannot do more for them. But we must keep moving.
The dead are at the front. The Itanyai prisoners are in the middle, surrounded by Noor rebels. Everyone is grim. We have twelve dead, but Sinan’s death was the one that destroyed the triumph.
We left about half the fighters at the bowl, preparing to fight a second wave. The rest of us are returning to Dagchocuk for supplies, and to bury the dead and allow families to care for the wounded. I sometimes hear Melik’s voice at the front of the procession, worn with grief but still sure and quick. I have no idea what he’s saying, but whenever we stop for a break, we leave fighters behind, possibly to keep watch for more machines.
I have no doubt Melik will return to the bowl, but not until after he buries Sinan. My stomach churns every time I catch glimpses of him, a tall form far ahead of me. He cradles his brother’s shoulders and head against his side while Baris and Bajram walk close behind and support the rest of the boy’s body. Like the rest of the dead, Sinan has been wrapped in a blanket, but Melik has not allowed his brother’s face to be covered. He walks with his fingers in Sinan’s rust-colored hair. He must be thinking that this is the last chance he has to touch his brother, to look at his face. He is hoarding every